Current weather

We’re still trying to crawl out from under an economic slowdown that has lasted for more than four years. Unemployment continues to be too high and too many people who run businesses are struggling to get by.

As we get closer to the end of the year, however, there are signs of encouragement and reasons to believe that an upturn may finally be underway.

The busiest day for mailing typically is the Monday before Christmas. The busiest shopping day often is Christmas Eve. This, then, has been a very busy week.

Amid the holiday bustle, it’s important to remember that the lines at the post offices and the cash registers wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for a special family crowding into Bethlehem two millennia ago.

Here I am again, same as last year, trudging through the snow in below-freezing weather at the North Pole just to get an interview with one of its citizens.

Do you know I had to buy an extra warm coat, heavy gloves and a stupid-looking hat for this once-a-year journey? Maybe the newspaper should reimburse me for all that. It couldn’t hurt to ask.

As my toes are becoming frostbitten because I didn’t think to buy heavy boots, I’m wondering who I could interview. Santa gives me permission every year but I never know who I’ll be talking to when I get there.

As a public official, citizen and father, I have lost a fragment of my faith these past few days. Not just because of the tragedy in a small Connecticut town, the reporting of which I cannot even bring myself to watch, but also in many of my leaders and neighbor’s reaction to the blow – their first instincts being finger-pointing and defensive posturing over their respective agendas.

The horrors of Newtown, Conn., last week have given our national mood a somber tone as we enter the peak of the holiday season.

We would be remiss, however, to allow the murder of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School to blind us to all the good happening at Christmas right here in our community on behalf of children and families. Here are some recent examples:

• The Santa Wheels program last week donated more than 150 bicycles to local needy children.

They’re just part of the latest rage: Taylor Swift and One Direction. Both phenomena have been on television recently in concert-like venues, entertaining screaming crowds of fans.

But I kept noticing on both occasions that no matter who was performing, the situation was the same. Screams and smiles might have peppered the crowd, and a few hardy souls even sang along, but invariably there were hundreds, if not thousands, of cameras held aloft. It would have been impossible for the cameramen to catch shots without smart phones front and center.